Work Text:
Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
Santana is eight years old when her Tío Carlos joins the Army. He comes back from Basic with hair short and soft beneath her fingers when he lets her run her small hands over it. It sharpens the hard planes of his face, but she only sees that when he doesn't know she's looking at him - he smiles when he sees her, every time.
They go to a gun and knife show in Bowling Green, Tío Javier and Tío Carlos, and Santana because she insists on coming with - Carlos is her favorite uncle, the youngest of her mother's brothers, young enough that he walked her to elementary school on his way to McKinley. She's old enough to know that joining the Army means that Carlito won't be able to come home very often, and so she's being selfish, tagging along whenever he'll let her.
Carlos carries her on his back through the sprawling mess of tables, and she hooks her chin on his shoulder as they look over case after case of gleaming weapons. Tío Javi buys a knife with an eagle carved on the handle. Carlos buys a small silver revolver, snub-nosed, holding it up for her approval. "I like it," she tells him, hiding her face agaist his neck, suddenly shy.
It's as they're headed out, already talking about the dinner her mother is making, that she kicks her foot against Carlito's hip. "Over there," she points, then slides down from his back when they reach the vendor she'd spotted.
The booth sells different things made of leather, and she runs her fingers over belts and wallets as she wanders down the table. At the end there's a rack with hats in various shapes and sizes. "That one," she says, pointing at a dark brown cowboy hat on the top peg. Carlos gets it down for her, but when he hands it to her she tugs on his arm until he bends over, then drops it on his head. He looks suddenly better, less naked, older and a little meaner. More like a soldier than the man who'd shown up in his dress greens with no hair, at least. "You need this," she tells him. "For protection."
"I do, do I?" Carlos asks, lips twitching into a smile.
"You do." There's no hesitation in her voice - Carlos looks right in the hat. He nods solemnly at her expression and reaches for his wallet.
Riding back to Lima, in the middle of the bench seat of Tío Javi's pickup, she makes Carlos tell her more stories about the Army. He tells her funny stories about a man named Jensen and the trouble he'd gotten up to. Carlos tells her that this Jensen has scrubbed every toilet in camp. She believes him, if even half of the stories he tells her are true.
When Carlos leaves, he kneels down in front of her, his new hat in one hand. "Be strong, niña," he whispers, pulling her into a fierce hug.
"I will," she tells him, blinking back tears. "I promise."
Carlos smiles at her. "Good," he murmurs. "I will see you again."
"Soon," Santana demands.
That brings a sad twist to Carlos's lips. "As soon as I can." And then he ruffles her hair and is gone.
* * *
"Papi is going to get Carlito," Mamí says.
She's so excited that she doesn't notice the expression on her mother's face. "Tío Carlos is coming home on leave?"
"Santana, Carlito... he was hurt very badly," Mamí says. "He's coming home to recuperate."
Santana stops dead, fumbling the glass that she's standing on tiptoe to get out of the cupboard and nearly dropping it. "What happened? Is he okay?"
Mamí lets out a breath. "I don't know the details yet," she admits. "All I know is that he was in Afghanistan and his team was attacked. He'll be staying with us."
Santana waits up for Papi to come home with Carlos, and Mamí lets her, even though it's a school night. When the door opens, she jumps up from the couch where they'd been watching South Pacific and runs to greet them. She skids to a halt in the doorway to the foyer.
"Careful, Santana," Papi says, holding a hand out to keep her back, but she's frozen on the spot. Carlos looks thin, almost hollow, hunched over crutches like they're the only thing keeping him upright. He's still got his hat, pulled low over his face, and she sees only a flicker of brown eyes sweeping the room, skating over her, before they disappear behind the brim again.
"Welcome home, Carlito," Mamí says from behind her, one warm hand on Santana's shoulder even though they're almost of a height now.
Tío Carlos clears his throat; when he speaks, it's almost like he hasn't spoken in years. "Mari. Santana."
Santana takes a step forward, but Carlos flinches, and she stops. "We should let Carlito get settled," Mamí says, pulling her back, and Santana allows herself to be led. She glances back at the door as she goes; Carlos is looking around like he's never seen the house before, like he walked through their front door and into a world that doesn't make sense anymore.
She knows the feeling, suddenly, and then it's gone again.
Over the next few days, Carlos is like a ghost; she hears him moving about the house at night, but no matter how she tries, she doesn't see him.
Mamí must say something to him, because he starts to appear at the dinner table. He hangs his hat on the back of his chair but keeps his eyes down, hair curling loosely over his face. He doesn't speak, even when spoken to, and Mamí only lets her try twice before pulling her aside as they're setting the table on the third day and telling her to give Carlito his space.
Carlos takes to sitting on the back deck after dinner, staring out over the woods behind their house with his bad leg propped up in front of him. Santana watches him the first night, from inside the house; the second night she gathers up her books and puts on her warmest sweater and goes to sit at the table outside.
Tío Carlos doesn't say anything, and neither does Santana. But that's okay.
The next day Santana starts to talk while she does her homework - nothing important, really, just stories about her day, or talking herself through her homework. She doesn't know if it's helping or not, but it makes her feel better, and Carlos doesn't leave.
Santana pushes because it's all she knows how to do. She knocks her foot against his good ankle under the dinner table. She sits down next to him on the couch, when Papi has cajoled him out to watch a football game. She sets food in front of him whenever she gets the chance, and glares at him until he eats it. And more than anything, she talks to him, a constant stream of sound, because Carlos's silence is oppressive, especially when he used to tell her so many stories. Slowly, he starts to thaw - he meets her eyes more, nudges her with an elbow when a play breaks open during the game, makes faces at her beneath the brim of his hat when Mamí nags him.
One night as they're finishing up dinner, Mamí says, "Santana, please go up to your room to do your homework. Papi and I would like to talk to Tío Carlito."
Santana glances at Carlos. He looks - spooked, almost, although he lifts his eyes from his plate long enough to meet her eyes and nod.
She goes upstairs, then pauses at the top step. "In your room, Santana," Mamí calls. "With the door closed."
"Yes, Mamí," she calls back. Obediently, she goes to her door, but hesitates, and then - before she can lose her nerve - she reaches out and pulls the door closed, and then stands in the hallway, as still as she can, holding her breath.
Downstairs, she hears her mother's voice, quiet but firm. "Carlito, you need to talk to someone." Santana winces; she doesn't want to hear this, but she's trapped - if she opens the door to her room now, they'll hear her downstairs. She glances around, trying not to panic - and sees that the door to Carlos's guest room is cracked open. Carefully, moving as slowly as she dares, she eases into his room.
Carlos came with one duffel, and the room barely looks lived in. His bed is made neatly. She looks through the dressers and finds only a few sets of clothes folded up in one drawer, the rest of them empty. His dress uniform hangs in the back of the closet, where it can't be seen unless someone's looking for it. One boot sits on the floor below it, the one for the broken ankle that has him on crutches.
She opens the drawers again, peeling the t-shirts apart, and almost cuts herself on the knife hiding between the layers of soft fabric. Careful now that she knows it's there, she slides the blade free from the shirts. It's cold in her hand, the blade newly sharpened, and an eagle on the handle.
Santana sits on the bed, and her hip bumps against something heavy under the pillow. She sets the knife down carefully on the nightstand before sliding her hand beneath the pillowcase.
It comes back holding a silver revolver. Santana looks at it for a long moment, turning it over, watching the way it catches the light. The handle is worn smooth already, and she runs her fingers over it, tracing the lines where Carlos's hand must go. It's not a large gun, but it's still too big for her hand. That doesn't stop her from holding it, finger sliding over the trigger guard.
There's a strangled noise from the doorway, and she looks up to find Carlos frozen, eyes wide as he watches her. "You look scared," Santana says, uncomprehendingly. It's not like Tío Carlos would keep a loaded gun under his pillow, right?
He moves suddenly, crossing the bedroom in three strides and wrapping long fingers around the gun even as his crutches clatter to the carpet. A second later he's shaking six bullets free, and only then does he release the hammer that was pulled back, the gun pointed away from both of them. It's not until that moment that Santana realizes - the gun wasn't only loaded, it was also cocked and ready to fire. She brings a shaking hand up to her mouth, looking up at Carlos. "Why do you have that?"
He tucks the gun into his waistband before glancing at her. "You shouldn't be in here," Carlos says.
"I was just looking," Santana says, voice still soft and shocked. "I didn't mean - I was just looking."
Carlos sighs and sits down next to her. "Mija," he says, haltingly.
"I'm sorry," she says, hands twisting in her lap. "I didn't mean to go through your things, I was just - I didn't go in my room but I didn't want to listen to what Mamí was saying and I just came in here and--"
Carlos wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in tight, and without thinking she flings her arms around his waist. Even after weeks of her Mamí's cooking he's too thin, skin and bones and wiry muscle. That doesn't keep Santana from clinging to him like she's afraid he'll disappear if she doesn't. Carlos runs a hand through her hair, making soothing noises - she's not sure if they're words or not, but she doesn't care.
When she feels like she's not going to fall to pieces just by opening her mouth, and after she's wiped away the few tears that did slip out, Santana laughs quietly. "That's more than I've heard you say since you got here," she says against Carlos's chest.
He gives her one last squeeze and then lets go; when she looks up at him, he's looking at the floor. "The words, they just..." He gestures at his throat.
"Get stuck?" she guesses.
Carlos looks grateful. "Sí. They are here," he points at his head, "but."
Santana leans back, looking him up and down. Carlos looks raw, exposed. She gives him a crooked smile. "I think you can make the strong and silent thing work."
That startles a little laugh out of Carlos, which makes Santana grin. "Yeah. But you gotta keep the hat. Otherwise you lose the whole effect."
"I will," he promises softly.
"I'm gonna hold you to that," she says.
The cast comes off of Carlos's ankle a week later, and afterwards Tío Javi takes him out. They come home after the bars close; Santana only hears them because she gets up to go to the bathroom, and so she's standing in the door of her room when Carlos ambles up the stairs, loose limbed and moving more quietly than a man who's as drunk as he is has any right to. He presses one finger to his lips and winks at her, and his smile is - it's wrong, a little manic, his eyes too wide in the darkness. And then he disappears into his room.
Santana doesn't sleep until the first light of dawn is slipping into the sky.
Mamí catches him the next time, probably because she waited up, and although she keeps her voice quiet the sound of her scolding still floats up the stairs to Santana's room. The time after that, they find Carlos asleep in one of the deck chairs out back. "If you're well enough to drink, you're well enough to go back to the Army," Mamí tells him before sending him to his room, hat pulled low over his eyes as he slinks past.
That weekend they're setting up for a party; it's Papi's birthday, and so her Abuela Lopez and all of her aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family are coming from Lima Heights to celebrate. The phone rings around noon, and Santana answers because she's closest. "Hello?"
"Hey, is Cougar there?" an unfamiliar voice asks. The person on the other end of the phone sounds remarkably unguarded, even to her ears, and oddly friendly.
"Who?" Santana asks, perplexed, because surely she's misheard. It's probably a wrong number.
"Coug--sorry, uh, Carlos?" the man tries again. The way he says Carlos's name makes it sound strange, like he's using a code name - which is what Cougar must be, she thinks. Santana frowns, tells the stranger to hold on.
Carlito is in the back yard, helping her father move tables and chairs. "The phone is for you," she says, handing him the cordless, and then, daring, "Cougar."
Carlos frowns a little at that before turning and walking away with the phone. "Sí?" He walks back towards the house, listening to the person on the other end talk. Santana tries to listen in, but Carlos isn't any more verbal with whatever Army guy must be calling him, and anyway her father sends her back in the house to fetch something. By the time she gets back outside the phone is sitting on the bottom step and Carlos is back to moving furniture like nothing has changed.
Three hours later, the party's in full swing when Santana comes into the kitchen to find Carlos and her abuela glaring at each other across the island countertop. Carlos is leaning against the refrigerator, rolling a beer bottle back and forth between his hands, wound up like she hasn't seen him since the day with the gun, and her abuela has her arms crossed. "It's not like that," Carlos says tightly.
"That's not what the girls are saying," her abuela says. Neither of them appear to have noticed Santana yet. "I hear things, Carlos. About how you turn down the girls when they want to go dancing. About how you always have time for the boys, yes?"
"I was going into the Army," Carlos replies, every muscle tense.
Abuela fixes him with a sharp look. "And now?"
Years later - years, when Santana's older, wiser, and bleeding from the evisceration of her abuela's rejection - she will look back on this conversation and understand. But in this moment, eleven years old and knowing only that her Tío Carlos has been hurt very badly, she sees nothing more than her abuela causing him more grief. She doesn't understand, Santana thinks as she steps into the room, she hasn't been here, she doesn't know, she doesn't understand-- "Tío Carlos, Mamí needs you outside."
Carlos gives her a look she doesn't understand - the expression on his face looks almost helpless - but he nods and tugs his hat down a little lower over his eyes as he steps past her and into the hall.
"I want you to stay away from him, Santana," her abuela says, watching him go.
"Abuela," she says, confused. "It's Tío Carlos."
Abuela shakes her head, eyes flinty as they meet Santana's. "He is not a good man." And then she leaves the room before Santana can argue.
Papi catches her before she reaches the backyard and makes her show one of her little cousins to the bathroom, and then Mamí has her bring food out, and then another of her cousins needs help, and so it's an hour before she realizes that Carlos is nowhere to be found. She checks the backyard, but he's not there, or in the garage with her other uncles. He's not in the living room, or in the kitchen. The door to his room is open but she checks anyway.
The bed is neatly made, as always, but there's a piece of paper sitting on the pillow. It has her mother's name on it in Carlos's handwriting, and when she unfolds it, all it says inside is Gracias. Santana checks the drawers and the closet but they're empty, Carlos's clothes and dress uniform and duffel gone. She checks carefully beneath the pillow, but the revolver's gone as well.
* * *
* * *
Brittany's smile is like the rising sun sliding up over the horizon. "I'd like that," she says. "We could go to Disneyland."
Santana's about to reply when someone walks up to their table and stops. "May we join you?"
She opens her mouth to scare off whoever it is, probably some mouth breather who wants to hit on the pretty girls sitting by themselves - and freezes as she sees the hat, and then the man wearing it. Santana defies several laws of physics and quite possibly breaks the sound barrier as she launches herself out of her seat and flings her arms around Carlos, knocking him back a few steps. "I thought you were dead, you bastard!" she says, letting go just long enough to smack him on the shoulder - and then she's flinging her arms around him again, squeezing tightly as she buries her face against his shoulder to hide the tears in her eyes.
"Didn't take," Carlos murmurs with a shrug, holding her just as tightly.
"See, there's the kind of Midwestern hospitality I was expecting," another voice says.
Santana peels her face away from Carlos long enough to give the stranger a Look. "Who the hell are you?"
"Jake Jensen," he replies, unperturbed by her Look, which either means that she's badly smudged her mascara or he's been hanging out with Carlos long enough to be immune. He follows this up with a shameless grin. "Moral support."
"Moral support, huh? He's all you could drag up?" Santana asks, although it's less ascerbic than it might have been otherwise.
Carlos shrugs ruefully. "I had a poor selection."
Jake looks mock-outraged, and is in fact opening his mouth to say something when Santana narrows his eyes at him. "Wait, did you say Jensen?" At Carlos's nod, she starts giggling - which is probably a sign of hysteria, but fuck it, Carlito's alive, she's allowed. "Is this the guy from Basic that you told me about? Who had to scrub all of the toilets?"
Carlos nods again as Jensen splutters, "Okay, first of all, it wasn't all of the toilets, and thank god, because Army officers do not know the meaning of good bathroom hygiene. Second of all--"
Santana tunes him out, turning back to the table where Brittany is looking uncertainly up at them. Santana's not sure if it's because everything happened so suddenly or if it's because Brittany's afraid that Santana isn't going to include her. She smiles at Brittany reassuringly, then feels her expression smooth out as she looks up at Carlos. "Tío Carlos, this is Brittany. Brittany, this is my Tío Carlos, who supposedly died a few months ago. He's in the Army."
"Was," Carlos says softly, and that's curious, but he's touching the brim of his hat and nodding to Brittany in greeting.
"Hi, dead Tío Carlos," Brittany says, as if everyone's got a dead uncle who comes back to life. Santana loves her so much for that.
"Dead Tío Carlos," Jensen muses. "That's got a ring to it, Cougs. I think you should keep that in mind in case you ever decide you want to be a wrestler. Do you think they'd let you wear your hat over a luchador mask?"
Brittany giggles. Carlos shakes his head as if to say he was dropped on his head as a child, repeatedly. "Are you always this weird?" Santana asks, directing it at Jensen.
"Oh no," Jensen says. "I'm on my best behavior today, right Cougar?"
"Dear God," Santana mutters, but Carlos shrugs and smirks, so she lets it go.
There's a park just across from Breadstix, and they go there first; Santana's not quite over the delicious shock of Carlos's resurrection, not quite ready for the fuss that'll be made over him at home. Besides, she wants to talk to him first, to tell him, before he hears it from anyone else.
She and Carlos sit on a picnic table, their feet propped up on a bench, while Jensen challenges Brittany to something on the swings. Santana's not quite sure what sort of competition you can have while swinging, but Jensen's enthusiasm is infectious and he teases Brittany like a sister, and whatever it is they're doing she seems to be having fun. So Santana takes a deep breath, pulls up her courage, and looks at her uncle. "Tío Carlos, there's something I need to tell you, before we go home."
Carlos meets her gaze and nods, eyes serious.
This is it. This might be the moment when he looks at her the way her abuela did, when he leaves her life as abruptly as he re-entered it. But she can't lie anymore - she won't lie anymore, especially not to him. "Brittany... She's more than just my friend. She's my girlfriend, and I love her, more than I've ever loved anyone before."
Carlos is silent, looking out at the swings, and the two blonds as they kick their legs, trying to drive themselves higher. "Like Jensen," he says finally, "and me."
She blinks, trying to parse, and then realization hits. "You and Jensen?"
Carlos nods, looking at her cautiously.
And Santana laughs. She laughs at the absurdity of it all. She laughs at the fact that they seem to have similar taste, if blond and silly counts. She laughs because she's sitting on a picnic table in Lima, Ohio with her favorite uncle, who it turns out is her gay uncle, and doesn't that just beat all. And suddenly she's not laughing, she's crying against Carlos's shoulder, because they both had to go through everything alone.
"It's okay?" Carlos asks, once she pushes away from him and wipes her eyes.
Santana nods, looking him in the eye. "I can't believe you still have that hat," she says, without meaning to.
Carlos smiles. "It was given to me by a pretty girl, for protection. And it has protected me well."
"Good," she says, her heart aching, because even without him telling her she knows that Carlos has to have walked through fire in his absence. It shows in the lines in his face, the wariness in his eyes when he looks anywhere other than right at her. "I'm glad."
"Hey Cougar, check this out!" Jensen calls, his swing arcing high into the sky. When it reaches its apex he jumps off, leaping into the sky.
"Does he always show off like this, or is it just because there are pretty girls around?" Santana asks dubiously as Jensen hits the ground and rolls, commando-style.
"You should see him around 8 year old girls," Carlos replies, lips twitching into a fond smile.
Santana snorts. "I can only imagine."
Once they're both ready, the four of them drive to Santana's parents' house - Carlos driving, Jensen riding shotgun, Santana and Brittany holding hands in the back. "I'm glad your dead uncle came back to life," Brittany tells her, and Santana can't help but smile at that.
"Me too," she murmurs, squeezing Brittany's hand.
Jensen's fiddling with the radio, flipping through channels until he hits WUZZ, the classic rock station. He fistpumps as he recognizes the piano chords. "Just a small town girl," he belts out at the top of his lungs, without hesitation, "living in a lonely wooooorld, she took the midnight train going aaaaaanyyyywhere."
Brittany pipes up next. "Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit, he took the midnight train going aaaaaanyyyywhere."
Carlos meets her eyes in the rearview mirror as Jensen says "nice, very nice," over his shoulder to Brittany.
Santana grins at him and takes the next verse. "A singer in a smoky room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume, for a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and onnnn."
Jensen and Brittany join in as the chorus kicks in, Jensen taking the high note on the long, drawn out 'niiiiiiiiiiiight.' Santana laughs, giddy, her hair streaming in the wind from the open windows. "You're singing with national champions, boys," she tells them with a grin.
It's not the first time she's belted out "Don't Stop Believing," and it almost certainly won't be the last. But it might be the best, driving through Lima in a car with two of her favorite people (and Jensen, who's quickly growing on her), everything in front of her. Hold on to that feeling, she thinks to herself, as Brittany and Cougar laugh at Jensen's air guitar.